Thorn In His Heart
by Aisling-Siobhan
Summary: FrostIron. After one too many betrayals, Tony learns that the best way to keep yourself safe, is to kill everybody else before they can think of hurting you. [I'm on the side of the angels. But never, for one moment, think that I am one of them. And I never said which angel I was on side with...] Slash AU


I always wondered what would happen, (when Coulson told Tony they didn't need him that much, in the movie), if they didn't have him at all and just didn't know it yet.

So... Here is Tony. Saving the world from Loki, because this world is _his_, and only he has the right to burn it down…

"Thorn in His Heart"

**Disclaimer: ** The Avengers, Tony, Loki, etc belong to Marvel, Stan Lee, et co. I make no money from this and own nothing, don't sue.

**Summary: ** [Tony/Loki] I'm on the side of the angels. But never, for one moment, think that I am one of them. And I never said which _angel_ I was on side with. [After one too many betrayals, Tony learns that the best way to keep yourself safe, is to kill everybody else before they can think of hurting you].

**Warnings: ** Slash. Loki/Tony. Through Iron Man 1, 2, Thor and the Avengers. Language. AU. FrostIron. Tony not on the side of the angels. God complex. Bottom!Loki. Loki is a masochist.

**Rating: ** NC-17.

**A/N**: This came to me about 4 hours before my exam was due to start and I should have been cramming. But then I put it off for about 2 months, and now can't really remember how I planned the middle part to go. I know the start, and the end, but the middle? I hope it's turned out as well as I envisaged…

**Title**: The title is taken from the song "World So Cold", by 12 Stones: 'How did you get here and when did it start? An innocent child with a thorn in his heart.'

_XXX_

**Words: 9,802**

**Chapter 1**

Stories generally start with, "once upon a time". Once upon a time, a boy was born, and his name was Anthony.

But stories never really start at the beginning, do they? They start just as the action is about to begin, just as the villain enters the piece and the protagonist is introduced, setting up the scene for the final triumph of good over evil. So really, the story doesn't start with Tony's birth.

Perhaps, it could have started when his parents were killed, and Obadiah Stane stepped in as his honorary father-figure, because later Obie would become the villain, and it would match the theory that stories begin just as the action is about to start. Maybe this story starts later than usual, where Tony realised just what he is capable of, and becomes a villain himself? But no hero steps up to meet him, and no cowardly towns-person, or friend, or family (for he has none left that were not built by him and so wholly loyal to him) calls him out. There is no battle in that scenario, no triumph for good, because sometimes evil does win. But sometimes, that's what is best for everybody, because Tony wasn't cruel or evil, not really; he was defending himself, taking pro-active action. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and Tony always came first in everything.

But, no. The story doesn't start there either. Indeed this story does begin with, once upon a time, but not in the way you think.

Instead:

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, Tony Stark awoke in a cave with a car battery strapped to his chest.

_XXX_

"I don't understand," Tony shouted at one of the guards. "I can't understand you!"

They threatened him with guns and violence, always waving them around, shouting in his face as if it would make him work faster. As always, Yinsen translated, repeating their angry words softly in English for Tony's benefit. "They say to hurry up, and when we are done, they will let us leave."

"No they won't," Tony answered softly, as he had answered every time Yinsen repeated the same thing for the last two months. He turned his face away as the guards laughed and made their way from the cell, their cell.

"No, you won't," Yinsen agreed so softly that Tony could barely make out the words. He rubbed at the stubble on his jaw, narrowing brown eyes at his fellow captive. Half of him wanted Yinsen to repeat himself, and the other half, the half that was terrified that he would die here, friendless and alone, wanted to hold onto the idea, the promise that Yinsen was on his side, that they were in this together, and so Tony stayed silent and went back to work.

The next time the guards came, one of them turned to Yinsen while the other took a quick look around the cell, lifting the sheets of paper that when laid over one another made up the plans for his Mark I. Tony glanced warily at that guard, just in case he took it into his head to slot all of the sheets together; but he didn't, instead he turned too to Yinsen and laughing, asked, "وهل يعرف ان كنت قد غدر به؟?"**1**

Yinsen gave a startled laugh in response, his cheeks growing hot, and Tony narrowed his eyes at them. Yinsen's laugh wasn't amused sounding, like their guards'. Instead, it sounded forced out of him, as if he had been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing, and he was trying to brush it off. It was the sound of guilt and it had Tony taking a step away from his friend and turning his full attention to the guards' words in a feeble attempt to distract himself.

It was insulting, demeaning the way the guards spoke to him, not because they insulted him or screamed at him some days, but because Tony knew they were talking about him and he couldn't understand anything they were saying. He couldn't defend himself against their words, and he felt so vulnerable standing there with his hands held over his head and his only ally laughing along with their captors. Tony, as always, grew frustrated. They were talking to him, dammit; they could at least talk in a language he could understand.

"I can't fucking understand you, you arsehole!" He shouted at the guard who had spoken. His head snapped back a moment later from the force of the man's fist against his cheek, but Tony kept his hands above his head and his eyes narrowed into slits, and before he answered, Yinsen considered whether looks could truly kill, because Tony was giving it his best shot.

"They say we should work faster if we wish to go home. I have told them I was… we were working as fast as we could."

The guards laughed again, turning to one another as if sharing a secret joke and Tony felt something horrible bubbling in his chest. It wasn't the miniature reactor malfunctioning, but hate so strong it burned him from the inside out, like a volcano erupting, it rose from his gut, stinging at his throat and his mouth, until it spewed from him like lava, terrible in its fury and just as destructive. "I'D WORK A LOT FASTER IF YOU WOULD ALL FUCK OFF!" Tony hissed at the guards. His hands came down and out as if to shove them away, and startled, the guards took two wary steps back each.

Yinsen, by his side, began mumbling apologies until Tony calmed down. And then, in his native language, Yinsen promised to make Tony work harder as long as they did not tell Tony of his betrayal. Still laughing, the guards left, locking the door behind them.

"What did you say to them?" Tony had been expecting another punch, and he wasn't sure why they had left so easily after his outburst, and that made him nervous.

"Nothing important, Stark. I just promised we would work harder."

"Right. Let's get to work then," Tony said slowly. Something still burned within him, but not anger this time, no, instead it was the beginnings of suspicion and paranoia, and if Tony never left Yinsen alone with his Mark I plans again, well, Yinsen never asked him about it.

_XXX_

Tony's instincts had usually proved to be right. In the past, Tony had ignored them. He had let his mother leave with his father and had never saw either of them alive again; he had come to Afghanistan to show off the Jericho even though his heart had nearly beat out of his chest on the plane ride over; he had confided in Obie of his fears of dying alone, of his own weapons being used against him though something in him rebelled at the idea of sharing something so personal with someone he was meant to trust, and look how that had turned out? Tony, alone in a cave, his chest blown apart by one of his own missiles, about to die. Who else, but Obie, would have had the power to sell weapons under the table? Double dealing and wheeling, it had always been Obie's speciality. Tony built. Obie sold.

So when his instincts told him not to trust Yinsen with his suit, this time Tony listened. And it was this fact that saved his life.

Hooked up to the Mark I, with no way to get out without someone to unbuckle him, Tony watched trapped and horrified as Yinsen ran from the computer charging the suit and began banging on the steel door.

He was shouting, screaming something, every now and then slipping into English to hiss, "I don't speak Hungarian," eyes darting back at Tony frantically, fearfully.

And Tony knew, with that one wide eyed glance exactly what was happening. He was being betrayed again, but this time he had prepared himself for it. His lips pulled back over his teeth, eyes narrowing, and Yinsen let out a gasp at the sight of Tony when he next looked back at the trapped prisoner. Tony looked feral, and the anger practically bled away from him in tendrils, corporeal and real and stretching out from Tony's head and heart and snaking their way through the air to get to Yinsen. The elder man dropped to the floor, shaking in fear, and outside the guards began banging at the door unable to get in, because without them or Yinsen knowing about it, Tony had soldered the lock shut.

"Suit, power on," Tony whispered. And the voice activation protocol he had installed set to work. The progress bar on the computer screen lit up, turning green bar by bar as Yinsen's hands began to shake against the door, and the arc reactor in Tony's chest flashed once, almost blindingly bright, and the suit pulled away from the wires and chains holding it to the ceiling.

The door blew open. Three guards lay sprawled outside of the cave, and Yinsen shakily got to his feet inside, just as Tony stepped towards him with his arms outstretched. "I'm sorry!" Yinsen screamed, scrambling to get to his feet before Tony could grab him. "They have my family! They promised to free my family!" For one second Tony stopped and thought about what he would have done in that situation, protect his family or protect some stranger he met in hell? And though the answer was obvious, no one, not even someone with good intentions, had the right to hurt him, because he was Tony fucking Stark, and as far as he was concerned Tony was a _god_. The media worshiped him, women were devoted to him, and people begged him for favours they did not deserve, and like a Pagan god of old, Tony could fulfil their wishes at his leisure or flourish under their attention or crush them like ants. But no one had the right to hurt him.

His metal right hand curled around Yinsen's neck, fingers thick and heavy and digging in to the man's throat, cutting off the scream he would have otherwise made. Tony squeezed, eyes wide behind the glass of his visor, watching as Yinsen turned red and purple and blue, and the sound of bones grinding to dust in the palm of his hand lessened the burning sting of betrayal in his chest. With each guard he killed as he made his escape, Tony felt something cracking inside of him. Some might have called it his sanity slipping, some others his conscience, but Tony likened it to his burdens coming apart from where they gripped onto him, falling and leaving him free. And with his new found freedom, came the elation and pleasure that accompanied achievement, vindication, desire. Tony flew out of that cave, leaving only a handful of people alive, and he dropped the machine gun that he had grabbed when his suit's ammo ran out.

He practically crawled through the sand, his shirt wrapped around his head to protect him from the sun. But Tony was determined. He hadn't died in that cave and he wouldn't die here now either. He was strong, he was a survivor; if he could build a heart out of scrap in a cave, if he could escape uninjured from those who had spent three months trying to harm him, then his legs could fucking keep walking. Just a little further. Just a little longer.

And Tony made himself walk, until he couldn't anymore, and then he crawled, arms out, and fingers clawing uselessly at the sand that slipped between them, until the sound of rotors turning made Tony raise his hands to the sky. One last burst of energy had him jumping to his feet, just as soldiers ran towards him. Rhodey was in the front, one of Tony's only friends, the number of which Tony could count on one hand, and the man pulled Tony against his chest and sobbed softly into his hair. Tony's arms slipped around the man's waist, body leaning onto the others' because his own lacked the strength to stay upright unaided, but his eyes remained dry and his face expressionless, returning none of Rhodey's relieved smiles. It was as he climbed into the helicopter, Rhodey patting him frantically on the back, that he glanced around at the men and women armed with Stark weapons, and he wondered, where the fuck were you when I needed you?

_XXX_

Tony had always believed that first impressions were the only kind that mattered, and he had read somewhere once and now lived by it that when you make an impression on someone, you make it to last. The Ten Rings had certainly made their impression on him.

Now it was his turn to return the favour.

The Mark II was fully charged, and Tony waited for Jarvis to open the garage door before he powered up the thrusters and shot off into the sky. He killed every one he could find, victims and villains alike, ignoring Jarvis' "but Sir those are civilians" in his ear and the little green triangles that the visor placed over the faces of those unarmed. But they were here, surrounded by Stark weapons, in the company of his captors… and Tony couldn't think clearly enough in the face of remembered fear and desperation to differentiate between the two. So he fired, missile after missile popping out of his shoulders and bullets flying from his hands and fire shooting out behind him from his feet as he flew above the pile of weapons just waiting to blow up in their owners' faces.

Tony killed them all. And when he done and no one was left standing but him, Tony went in search of Yinsen's home, where his family were supposedly being kept captive by Raza. When he found them, Tony killed them too.

_XXX_

Tony wasn't called a genius simply because the word sounded nice. He genuinely was one, his brain constantly ticking, like a clock that couldn't be switched off and so the ideas went around and around inside of his head with every second that passed until he was able to crack himself open and spill them out onto paper. And the _ideas_ he had right now! He had nearly gone mad on the flight home, the waiting almost killing him; arms shaking and heart jolting as he flew, from excitement rather than his near death experience, until he was able to get to his lab and set to work.After nearly being blasted out of the sky by the military, Tony knew he needed to make his suit better, faster, stronger. Rhodey was on board with the idea too, because while Tony had let the pilot ejected from his plane die, calmly watching as the man fell screaming to earth and his parachute refused to eject, no one could prove that Tony could have saved him and no one knew that Tony had even been in the suit in the first place.

Rhodey thought it was another weapon, something new, something brilliant like the Jericho. One for every soldier in the United States, an army to outdo all armies, encased in metal and powered by technology that no one but Tony had mastered. America would be the country to be afraid of once more, forget Iran and their nuclear warfare, or North Korea, or Russia, or Iraq. American would have an army of Iron Men, of war machines, and because no one knew Tony had been wearing the suit every person who knew of it believed that no more American soldiers would have to be sacrificed to win their wars. It was considered a godsend by all those who were aware of the creation.

But the suit wasn't for the military. The suit was for Tony. Tony was Iron Man and Iron Man was Tony, and no one else would ever take that away from him. But he continued to build weapons for the army, but this time he was smarter about it, this time he never said a word to Obadiah or to the staff. Instead, Tony started making the prototypes himself in his own workshop, installing viruses and Trojans and complicated patterns that hid beneath the first two that no one would notice as a result. Tony had passed them on to the company and the scientists there attempted to replicate each weapon, noting with confusion the faults of each and removing them, and thinking that they had done such a good job, each of them, every time, ignored the tiny bit of programming left hidden that was Jarvis.

As every new weapon, every new appliance, and phone or console entered the market, Tony gained a little more control over the world.

He had almost forgotten about Obadiah's betrayal, almost but not quite. He kept an eye out for him, doing his best to avoid the elder man, even occasionally railroading him with the investors or the board. But Tony was home, in his workshop and in his city, and he was safe with Jarvis and Iron Man and his other creations. They were there to protect him from outside harm, and the windows of his mansion had been replaced with bullet proof glass, but it hadn't been enough, because Tony hadn't thought he would need more protection than that. Because he had never contemplated that Obadiah would do his own dirty work.

So, Tony lay sprawled awkwardly on the sofa as Obie ripped the arc reactor from his chest. He wheezed, paralysed, as Obie walked from the room, but he laughed as he crawled to the elevator, fingers pulling him slowly across the floor to his workshop where Pepper had left his spare heart, because while Tony hadn't though Obadiah would take it himself he had known _someone_ would try to take it for him. And he had prepared for that.

"Jarvis," Tony called some time later, flying away from Rhodey and Malibu, towards where Stane was powering up his own bastardised version of the suit with Tony's own reactor, "get ready to override. Protocol 5-T-4-N-3 on my command, buddy."

"Getting ready, Sir. Awaiting your command." Jarvis answered immediately.

Iron Monger faced him, and Pepper cowered behind him, and Tony smiled calmly beneath the helmet of his suit. Stane's thrusters ignited, lifting the man just off of the ground. Both arms moved forward, palms aimed at Tony, who made no move to defend himself even as Pepper screamed.

"Jarvis, override."

"Initializing Protocol five-T-four-N-three. Overriding now, Sir." As Jarvis finished speaking, his voice sounding only in Tony's ear, the light in Iron Monger's chest blinked out. The suit hit the ground, and though it didn't fall far, the sound of the impact had Tony flinched back.

"Jarvis," he said again, and the arc reactor powered back on. Iron Man took to the sky, and Jarvis, the tiny piece of him that Tony had built into the modified arc reactor (just as he had built it into all of his new weapons and products) took control of Iron Monger once more and made that suit follow.

"Jarvis, override." And the suit fell back down, falling from a more extreme height and Stane screamed this time as he ploughed into the ground.

"Jarvis," Tony ordered, rubbing his metal hands together with pleasure. Pride surged within him, fighting for dominance with that other, darker, emotion that consumed him. He was feeling vindictive, flying up higher and higher each time before cutting off the reactor's power and watching Obadiah's face meet the ground again and again. Eventually, there was nothing left of the helmet, but smashed metal, dented and crushed, with blood leaking from torn edges and cracks in the face plate.

Pepper hadn't left like he had told her to, and Tony turned around then, after he'd looked his fill at what remained of his godfather, to face her. "Do you trust me?" He asked her, lifting the faceplate of the suit so that she had to look him in the eyes when she answered.

"Yes," she breathed, sounding calm but looking horrified, and her green eyes stayed fixed on his own brown ones, avoiding the sight behind Tony.

"Good," Tony said firmly, striding forward to wrap one arm around her waist. They lifted off of the ground together, Pepper automatically reaching out to grab hold of Tony's neck. Before the faceplate came down again, he offered Pepper a quick grin, the skin around his eyes tight with anxiety, even though he sounded like he couldn't have cared less. "Then this never happened." With that, he aimed once more at the remains of his remaining family, and he fired. Inside of Stark Industries, or at least this particular facility belong to SI, the arc reactor exploded, taking the building and the body with it.

It was an accident, the newspapers claimed. A malfunction with unpredictable technology, it was bound to happen eventually, the board was told. Only one casualty, a potential disaster averted by the sacrifice of one man, is what Tony told Obadiah's friends and family. Despite Pepper having gone to Agent Coulson for help originally, and his being there when Iron Monger was first powered up, I have no idea what you're talking about, was what Pepper told SHIELD when they came calling. I was experimenting, Tony told Rhodey, on the man that tried to kill me twice, and Rhodey having seen the state of Tony after both attempts nodded once and never mentioned it again.

The news portrayed Tony as a hero, especially after discovering that his technology, his suit, had defeated the terrorists in Afghanistan (though the made no mention of the civilian collateral damage), the military were throwing contracts at him left, right and centre, and SI had more investors than ever before. But unlike the rest of the world, Pepper and Rhodey knew Tony well enough to know that when he claimed that his being a hero would be fantastical and untrue (a minute before he admitted to being Iron Man), that Tony wasn't lying. He was telling the truth: he wasn't a hero. Tony was the furthest thing possible from a hero, but they were his friends, his family and they loved Tony despite everything, so they kept their mouths shut and smiled for the cameras.

_XXX_

The sting of betrayal was back again, scorching under his skin and itching along every inch of his body, an itch that Tony couldn't ever hope to scratch. He glanced up at Rhodes from where he lay on the floor of his living room, watching as the Mark II stared down at him unnervingly.

"What, what James?" Tony asked with a harsh laugh, "going to beat me up with my own weapons? How original!" He scoffed, pushing himself slowly to his feet.

At the edge of the room, a red haired woman narrowed her eyes at them, debating the pros and cons of interfering, but then stayed put because she wanted to see how Tony reacted, she wanted to see if Director Fury was right to be concerned. Because so far, Natasha hadn't seen anything that would point to Tony Stark being any more of a danger to the Earth since Afghanistan, than he had ever been.

Pepper had cleared the room, quickly and efficiently, as soon as Tony had pissed in his suit, knowing at that point that things were about to get messy. Rhodey coming in through the ceiling had only reinforced the point that everyone needed to be gone as of yesterday. Tony glanced around at the mostly empty room, meeting Pepper's eyes through the visor though she didn't know, only knowing that he was watching her, until she nodded, and then he glanced over at his new assistant, knowing she wasn't quite who she said she was, but figuring what the heck, because he was going to die anyway. He might as well go out with a bang.

He aimed at Rhodey, at the Mark II, ignoring the fact that this was his best friend, had been his best friend since their MIT days, because the betrayal was fresher than that, burned brighter and made bile rise to the back of his throat from the thought of it. Rhodey had betrayed him, like Yinsen and Obie, and it didn't matter that Rhodey was his friend because they had been too and that hadn't saved them from Tony's wrath either.

Tony fired.

Rhodey, having expected bullets or something of the sort, raised his own hand to deflect, but instead electricity surged towards his chest, striking the power source of the suit and short circuiting it. The Mark II went down; Rhodey's screams ricocheting around his helmet and leaking out into the room. Pepper cringed, and Natasha gaped in shock, and Tony watched it all with a smile hidden behind his faceplate, because this is what befell those who betrayed him. This was what happened when you made enemies of a god.

_XXX_

"It was all in good fun, Nick," Tony said with a chuckle. Tony raised his full whiskey glass, spilling some out over the rim and onto his hand. With a grin, he leant down to lick the drops off of his thumb, smirking at the glaring man in the leather jacket who had invaded his mansion.

"Fun, huh?" Nick Fury drawled, narrowing his one good eye at Tony Stark. "From what I hear, it was more akin to torture."

"From what you hear?" Tony questioned, his eyebrows furrowing, and then drawing straight again as Natalie Rushman appeared behind the dark-skinned man. "Ah," he chuckled, looking less surprise than the two agents had expected him to be, "I see. No matter. It wasn't a big deal, drunken antics and all that; Rhodey isn't even mad at me!"

Fury glanced back at the red-haired woman, raising one eyebrow to which she offered a shake of her head, before he turned back to Tony. "So why isn't he here?"

"He's pissed off that I took the suit back. I was going to make him one you know, was gonna paint it the red, white and blue, and throw some stars and eagles across it and name it the Iron Patriot. Rhodes would have gotten his jollies outta that. But well," Tony trailed off, tilting his head to one side consideringly, "you don't steal from me."

What Tony didn't say was that you shouldn't betray his trust, because he would no longer stand for it, would no longer allow it (like those girls who slept with him and then snuck around his house for secrets to sell to the newspapers and he had laughed and drank to their health and Pepper wouldn't let him sue them). But now, Pepper wouldn't hold him back, she couldn't. She had seen what Tony had done to Obadiah and she was afraid, not of him, not necessarily, but of what he was capable of. And Tony was capable of a great many things, both good and bad, but he had promised her that he would only hurt those who hurt him. He had crossed his fingers behind his back as he promised, and never spoke of the civilians in Afghanistan he had killed or the pilot who had fallen to his death after Tony shot his ship out of the sky.

Tony must have missed something, lost in his own thoughts, because when he tuned back in Fury was talking to his secretary about the Avengers Initiative. Apparently, he wasn't a viable candidate.

"I am Iron Man," he told them, snorting at the thought that they would hire his suit but not him. They were one and the same and the arc reactor wouldn't power any suit but his own and Jarvis wouldn't allow the reactor to run without his permission anyway. Not after what Obie did. "It's all of me or none of me, baby."

Nick Fury had chosen to leave the mansion with none of Tony, and he had taken Natasha Romanov with him. Tony had watched them go, thinking back on the party and how he had shown Natalie the gauntlet, and his eyes narrowed at their backs. "Jarvis," Tony whispered, even though the others were well out of earshot, "remind me to pay her back for her betrayal."

"Yes sir," Jarvis said, and if he could sound smug he would have, "revenge always was a dish best served cold."

_XXX_

It wasn't for another few months, after Tony had flown over the artic and discovered completely by accident an arm sticking up through the ice, that SHIELD turned up on his door again. It wasn't that surprising really, considering Tony had Captain America thawing out in one of his guest rooms.

There was no love lost between them, Tony and Steve that is. From the moment Steve woke up he had tried to find similarities (that didn't exist) between Tony and his father, and if there was anyone whose betrayal stung the most it was Howard Stark's. Tony had never quite lived up to Steve in his father's eyes, always a disappointment though he was much smarter than them both, always an annoyance though Tony had _fixed_ whatever his father couldn't. His father had brought Maria along with him, even though Tony begged him not to, and they had both died; instead of just Howard. Howard's death, Tony would have lived with, but his mother had been the one person who had encouraged Tony's science projects. While everyone else had told him, "_Tony, stay out of your father's workshop_", Maria had smiled and while not been particularly enthusiastic she had told him to do whatever made him happy as long as he didn't hurt himself. "_You're a big boy, Tony, if you think you can handle it then I think you can too_." Tony had taken the advice to heart, and at her funeral Tony had whispered the words back to himself, over and over, until he could no longer hear the service or the false condolences, but instead his mother whispering softly, "you can handle it".

So when Director Fury offered him a job as lead consultant, in exchange for custody of Captain America, Tony was more than happy to agree. Well, as long as 'lead consultant' also meant lead engineer on any projects SHIELD were currently or planning on working on.

Tony began work on the Helicarrier. The designs for such a vessel were a bitch to get right, to fly it couldn't weigh too much, but to tread water it couldn't weigh too little, and it had to be armed, without being affected by any extra weight. He had to take into account a separate, isolated ventilation system, a waste system, food, sleeping quarters, all of the electrics that could short circuit if they weren't properly protected from the water or the atmosphere. But Tony relished in it, every moment he worked his heart beat frantically in his chest, and he built and created and hid Jarvis in the very depths of SHEILD's systems where he would never be found. The first time they tested the Helicarrier out, Agent Coulson wasn't present. Fury and Tony stood side by side, Pepper hovering in the background with her Stark-phone, keeping up the pretence that Jarvis wasn't able to keep track of Tony's new invention otherwise. The Helicarrier rose off of the ground, only a few inches at first and then higher until it was flown over to the ocean and landed upon the waves. At the same time, in New Mexico, Agent Coulson aimed his gun at the Destroyer and blamed Tony for its presence.

_XXX_

"Aliens?" Tony asked, trying hard not to laugh. "Gods?" He snorted at that, because the idea of _other_ gods was ludacris, and he'd easier sleep at night dreaming of alien races rather than the idea that one person out there sought to overthrow _him_. He was the only God the Earth needed, even if they didn't know it yet, even though they wouldn't realise until it was too late for them to resist. No one had the right to displace him. The thought that there had been two others in New Mexico and Tony hadn't been there to keep an eye on them or study them unnerved him. But they were gone now, and if he had anything to say about it, they wouldn't be welcomed back any time soon.

"You want me to build you weapons?" Tony asked, folding his arms across his chest, just under the glow of the arc reactor.

"Should we ever find ourselves at the mercy of their kind or any other race from outer space," Fury said, sneering darkly as if the very words had offended him, "we will be prepared. And you are our lead engineer, after all, Stark."

"I'm the best," Tony countered, smiling widely at the scowl he was given in return. "Why settle for less than that, eh Nick? Do you still have the Destroyer?" He interrupted anything else Fury had been about to say. After receiving a terse nod, Tony turned towards the exit and called back over his shoulder, "I'd like to study it for a bit, and then, after, you can introduce me to the Tesseract. I'll build you a weapon the likes of which you've never seen before," Tony promised.

In his mind, he repeated the same sentence he had spoken to those soldiers in Afghanistan, back before the explosion and the betrayal that had changed his life. He would build a weapon to rule the world with, because he was the best, and the best weapon was one you only had to fire once.

But it would be his, not Fury's, like all of his inventions were his. Like the Helicarrier was his, and spilled all of its secrets to Jarvis whenever Tony asked it to. Like the Destroyer would be his, once Tony had finished with it. Like his army of suits that stayed hidden in his garage in Malibu, each of them capable of operating without him inside of them, connected to Jarvis through the original Iron Man suit and a little chip buried in at the base of Tony's head. If the time came, that the Earth would face a threat like Fury was expecting, that race would never know what hit them, wouldn't even have a chance to scream before Tony was kicking their arses back to wherever they came from. Like everything, this world was _his_.

Only he had the right to burn it down.

That was the will of this god.

_XXX_

When Loki finally does try to invade the Earth, Tony isn't there to stop him. Instead, Tony is switching on his first Stark Tower. It's run on pure, clean energy, but it is arc reactor technology and not the Tesseract because Tony didn't care to hear Fury's, "I own that Tower, Stark," like he had heard it when Nick had tried to take the weapons from him. His Tesseract created them, apparently that made them his, but Tony had built them, Tony had created them, the idea behind the born within his mind and birthed through his hands, and they were his more than anyone's. Tony had fought for them, of course he had, and when he had won them, fair and square and Hawkeye was slightly singed and Romanov was in the hospital with three broken ribs and so many burns they had to put her into a medically induced coma, Director Fury had raised his hands slowly, side by side with Coulson, and said:

"Not Avengers material." It was accompanied by a slow shake of his head, as if he were disappointed in Tony rather than afraid of him.

Coulson had sighed, knowing more about Stark than Fury did, understanding more because he knew about Tony from the next best thing to the source: Pepper. "No, sir," he had agreed, because what else could he say? Tony might play at being an angel, but he wasn't one, and pity those who mistook him for one.

Selvig had watched with terrified, wide eyes as Tony gathered up his weapons, and rolled up his plans, and glanced thoughtfully at the Tesseract still suspended in the air by the machine Tony had built. Tony considered taking it, because his father had found it long before SHIELD had, so didn't that make it his as well? But he needed the suit to lift the machine and Tony didn't fancy his chances carrying the cube around with his bare hands, especially since he had Happy waiting outside in the car to drive him home. Risking himself was one thing, but risking those few, miniscule few, who remained loyal to him was a different matter entirely. And so the cube remained where it was, and a month later, when it turned on and Loki came through space and it to land upon the Earth, it wasn't in some remote research area of Stark Industries but in PEGASUS, and he tore it down around their ears, crumbled the very ground they stood upon, as he escaped, Tesseract in hand.

But it was Tony's Tesseract, and Tony's super-secret base, and Tony's world, and Coulson didn't even have to ask twice for help. Nor once in fact, because the moment Tony caught sight of the glowing cube in the Asgardian's hands, his eyes had narrowed and a hiss had escaped through clenched teeth. "Where is he?"

"We're searching for him now, Stark. Are you coming?" Phil asked, with his hands clasped behind his back.

Tony was already in the elevator by the time Pepper thought to question what was wrong. "Are you coming?" Tony mocked, raising one eyebrow at Coulson until he moved towards the lift. Pepper was left watching them go and the images of the other Avengers candidates continued to play around her, and there was Loki with Tony's Tesseract in hand and Pepper sighed, because surely this couldn't end well.

_XXX_

When Iron Man arrived in Stuttgart, he didn't just knock Loki down and stand threateningly over him. Instead, he held his hand out, ignoring the arms Loki raised in surrender, and charged. Loki flew backwards, taken by surprise by the repulsor blast, and he groaned loudly as his back skidded across the ground, bouncing like a stone skimming the surface of a pond. Steve turned to Tony, and even beneath the mask Tony could see the expression of horror that crossed his face.

"He surrendered!" Steve cried. "He was unarmed!"

"He touched my stuff," Tony answered, mouth pulling up into a wide grin. He stalked towards Loki's crumpled form, each footstep making the rubble around Loki's body shudder. Tony grabbed him by the throat, pulling him out of the resulting crater and shook the god lightly.

Loki gave a laugh, sounding like more of a croak as Tony's fist tightened around his throat. "I have never been adverse to violence in my bed chamber, but I admit, this is taking things a little too far, do you not think?" Loki glanced over his shoulder at the hole in the ground and the crumbling staircase that Steve had smashed him into earlier and the cracked in the pavement where Tony had stomped towards him.

"You can never take things too far in the bedroom, baby," Tony said with a leer, looking the Asgardian up and down, "in my bedroom, everything is golden."

"Is that an invitation?" Loki grinned, wicked and wide, and Tony wasn't sure if he wanted to hit him some more or kiss him, but then he thought of PEGASUS and the year it took to get that place up and running and Loki had taken in down in under two minutes, and of the Tesseract that he had been planning on retrieving at some point that was now god-knows-where (but a metaphorical god, because there were no others like Tony on Earth, and if Loki truly was a god then he wasn't welcome in Tony's world). The urge to hurt won out, as it always did. Tony chose to hurt instead of being hurt, and if he were hurt, his retaliation would be twice as painful, twice as cold, and if this man were anything like him, aspiring to be a god, wanting to rule this world, then Tony knew right where to hit him hardest: his pride.

"Not all that glitters is gold," Tony replied, with a casual shrug, dismissing Loki entirely.

His hand released Loki's throat, and the god dropped with a hiss. His green eyes narrowed, having caught the intention to insult him, and his lips pulled back into a sneer that quickly disappeared as Tony aimed another blast at him. Steve's hand on his arm sent his aim off, and the ground behind Loki's head exploded comically, bits of stone and cement flying every which way. And Loki cowered from the extent of Tony's hate, so much like Thanos, so filled by the need to destroy and ravage and take, and the god felt despair for the first time since arriving because if he could not defeat Thanos how could he defeat this man? He had prepared himself for the Avengers, and from what Barton had told him they were a joke and they were it seemed, but Barton had said nothing about Stark aside from jokes on his suit over compensating for something. But this Stark, the one who stared down at him, glaring through the gold faceplate and straight into his heart, he was something to be feared.

_XXX_

Thor came to Earth next, and he too took Tony's stuff. Loki was Tony's until Tony was finished punishing him, and yeah maybe he had planned on fucking the alien once or twice because really it was the quickest way to get the other man to submit to him, and when they were all clear as to who exactly was in charge then Fury could kill or torture Loki to his heart's content. But having his alien not-brother come along and rip Loki right out of Tony's grasp was not part of the plan.

So, Tony went to get his stuff back, and after knocking Thor through a handful of trees and being electrocuted himself, accidentally charging the suit to 400 percent capacity, Tony flicked a switch on the back of his neck plate. A second suit of armour, made from adamantium and coated in a liquidised form of the energy the Tesseract emitted, appeared through the trees like a missile, slamming straight into Thor's stomach and carrying him off. There was no body in the suit, no one to hurt or threaten or cajole into releasing him, and the suit continued to fly until Thor managed to rip its arms off. The suit, as programmed and as instructed by Jarvis, dived towards his arms, nanotechnology allowing the suit to piece itself together slowly, and all the while Thor fell to Earth without his hammer, which he had dropped when the suit first grabbed him.

In the meantime, Tony had grabbed hold of Loki's neck again, pulling the man over the edge of the cliff he had been waiting on and dangling him until Steve appeared.

"We need the cube, Stark. He knows where the cube is."

Relenting, Tony pulled Loki back in, slightly suspicious of the other man's lack of attempts to escape or defend himself. He didn't know that by now Loki had convinced himself that Tony was actually Thanos in possession of a mortal body, come to Earth to make sure Loki upheld his end of the bargain, and Loki had no wish to insult the one who put the sceptre in his hands, and anyway he needed to get to their flying fortress if he was to rip it from the sky.

"I know not where it is," Loki told them, glancing at Tony's faceplate with a look that spoke of lies.

Tony smirked at Steve's dejected expression, and instead leant in to whisper against Loki's ear, soft and sibilant, "But I know where it is." The Tesseract had been his, was his, and with all of his things since Obie Jarvis was a part of them. Where Jarvis was, Tony could find. It was simply a matter of time.

_XXX_

The Chitauri were vast in number, but they were stupid and easily killed. Tony had enjoyed watching as one after another fell before the might of his armour. He watched them, leaning down over the balcony of his tower as he waited for Loki to appear (eventually shot back in over the balcony by Hawkeye), as Iron Man and Iron Patriot and, what he had saved and rebuilt of, Iron Monger patrolled the streets of New York accompanied by the distrustful Avengers, most amusingly Natasha who could never have conceived this level of deception, hadn't had the slightest notion of it despite all of the months she had spent living with him in his mansion in Malibu.

"My Lord, Thanos," Loki called from behind him. When Tony turned, his bracelets an unusual addition to his wrists and his suit off, it was to find Loki kneeling behind him with his head bowed.

"This is a position I could get used to seeing you in." Tony poured himself a drink, swirling it lightly in the glass before taking a sip. "It's good to see you've learned your place in the scheme of things, Lokes." Loki looked up, his brow furrowed in confusion; in his head the Other was screaming as more and more of the Chitauri were killed. "If there will be any God in this world, it will be me. They already worship me, my achievements, my gifts to them, and soon they will bow before me. But never before you, because this world is mine, these people are mine; they just don't know it yet." Tony spread his hands out by his sides, as if to say, this, all of this, is mine, and Loki narrowed his eyes at the mortal.

"You are not Him," Loki whispered, looking and sounding horrified. He jumped to his feet, the sceptre appearing in his hands, and he pointed it at Tony, who merely smiled and walked calmly towards him.

With both hands on Loki's face, and their mouths less than an inch apart, Tony whispered, "G8, Jarvis." He kissed Loki then, a hard press of his lips against the other's slack mouth, forceful and vicious, and when Loki didn't kiss back Tony bit his bottom lip until it bled. With a gasp, Loki jerked away, shoving at Tony until the man was stepping out of the strangely large floor tile where Loki stood, shaking.

The minute Tony was out of the square, stepping into G9 instead, Jarvis spoke up. "Understood, sir. Activating Battleship."

Normally, Jarvis wouldn't have responded. They had agreed that this was a defence that was best kept secret, to better take the aggressor by surprise, but with Loki Tony wanted him to know that something was going to happen and there was nothing he could do to stop it, because how could he even begin to guess what Tony had planned, how could he possibly understand the many, many scenarios that existed at the one time inside of Tony's head.

Loki was screaming. There was electricity flowing through the walls and the tiles, and focusing specifically on the one he stood upon, crawling up Loki's legs and down his arms and under his skin until he was glowing from the inside out and only the fact that he was healing himself even as he burned kept him from melting like wax. When he pain ended, when the voice in the ceiling put out the magical fire that had burned through all of his nerves and senses, Loki dropped to his knees again, head hanging forward as he panted through the remnants of agony, like nothing he had ever experienced at the hands of Thanos. His fingers sizzled as they pressed against the ground, and sparks danced between his fingertips and the tile, lighting up the black metal like tiny stars against the sky, and Loki laughed, hoarse and hysterical.

"It matters not, it's too late," Loki said, glancing up at the Leviathan that was beginning to emerge from the portal.

"It's never too late if you have a contingency plan," Tony replied, his voice sounding far stronger than Loki's, less tortured. "Jarvis, Skyfall on three."

"Yes, sir, initialising now," the AI replied, and Loki glanced around wildly for the source of the voice, now no longer believing it to be one of Thanos' servants speaking within their minds. After three seconds had passed, the tower rocked, as if it had been seized by the hands of a Titan or the earth it stood upon had been rocked by an earthquake. The ceiling trembled, and after a moment someone screamed. Tony raised his wrists, and his suit flew towards him, encasing him in seconds and protecting him as the top of his tower fell down around his head, and with it, the machine that was housing the Tesseract.

Selvig lay, unmoving beneath a pile of rubble and metal, with blood running from his nose and mouth and his neck bent at an unnatural angle. Loki groaned, pushing himself to his feet and kicking away that stone that sought to trap him. Tony watched, Jarvis still safe and secure, and he pulled down the faceplate to hide his smirk as he bent down to pick up the Tesseract.

"Welcome home, darling," he told the cube, turning his back on Loki to place the cube into a second briefcase that had been waiting behind the bar.

Hulk appeared, snarling at Loki while Tony was distracted. "I am a God, you dull creature!" Loki hissed, because though Stark had defeated and humiliated him, Stark was made from a different mould to the others and Loki had seen it coming from their first meeting. Stark, who was much like Thanos that even Loki had gotten them confused, had the right to defeat him, just as he had the right to a rematch someday. But that this mortal, this monster, would dare?

"No," Tony whispered, turning back to face them both, "I am the only God here, E.T. Now, go home."

When the missile came, hurtling towards Manhattan at the speed of light, Tony merely called to Jarvis again, and the piece of the AI inside of the weapon that Tony had built answered him by exploding. The ocean churned from the force of the explosion and the power of destruction it held, but the portal had closed when the Tesseract had detached, and Tony had had nowhere else to put it. But he was hailed a hero for it, despite the minor tsunami his actions had created, and a genius for keeping himself free to deal with Loki while his suits protected the civilians of the city, and then as a god for bringing a real god so low.

Loki trailed compliantly behind him with his arms bound through the streets until they reached SHIELD's closest pick up point, and Tony never once offered to help anyone, or rescue anyone, or move rubble like Steve was valiantly doing, because they were right. He wasn't one to make the sacrifice play, nor crawl over the wire, nor get down on his hands and knees for somebody else's benefit. Instead he watched them all, scrambling and scraping around him, his hand tight on Loki's shoulder, pushing and pushing until Loki fell to his knees again, his head resting lightly against Tony's muscled thigh. He stood above them all, their god, their king, and they without saying it once accepted that as his position, casting him awed glances and throwing praise and adulations towards him without asking anything from him. Tony kept his faceplate up, his playboy persona firmly in place as he winked and smirked and flirted a little with those who dared to approach him, ignoring the tightening of Loki's bound hands on his thigh.

Thor came towards them, and Loki and Tony both glared, though Loki's gaze travelled back and forth between the one who always had undermined him and the one who had defeated him with ease, the one who, if the opportunity arose, Loki would not mind so much being dominated by.

Indeed the opportunity arose, just before Loki was due to be taken back to Asgard for punishment, Tony had appeared at his cell determined to extract his own brand of punishment, of revenge, and Loki had tilted his head back welcoming the biting kisses that Tony laid there. Loki arched his back and screamed for him, begging for more pleasure and panting through each sting of pain, until Tony had hurt him enough, had touched and stroked and sucked him enough, that Loki couldn't possibly think of holding out any longer. It wasn't just about torture, wasn't just about gripping Loki tight with the gauntlets of his suit until the man screamed for mercy, or about the burns he left across Loki's back when the man refused to apologize for destroying Tony's tower, or the bites that littered the column of his throat and his inner thighs, now the way Loki winced when Tony pulled out of him, fucked dry and raw and rough but so very well, and no, nothing was taking things too far in Tony's bed. Rather it was not enough, and Tony did not let Loki come until he screamed, "God! God, Tony, fuck!"

Each time afterwards, when Tony asked, who is your god, Loki answered with, "you".

"Yes," Tony would hiss into Loki's ear, unconcerned that the guards at the door could probably hear everything he said, "Yes, I am God. Your god, their god, _the_ God," he promised, each time, before he let Loki come, and the other man would pant beneath him, forgetting in the face of Tony's passion and resemblance to those in Space that no one wished to cross that _he_ was the god. Not Tony.

_XXX_

They stood in a circle, in the middle of a park in the less ruined part of New York, with Thor and Loki in the centre of them. Thor held the Tesseract, in a glass case that Tony had constructed for him; the gift he had offered Thor in exchange for his brother's punishment at his hands, because Tony wasn't stupid and he didn't think Thor would never find out, and this way, without knowing what Tony had had in mind, Thor had consented to it all.

Loki was watching him, dark red stains along his neck and a deep gash under one eye and across his nose where Tony had smacked him, gauntleted hand cracking the bone as Loki shouted, because at first Loki had refused to accept pain with his pleasure. Thor on the other hand was immaculate, as if not one of the Chitauri had managed to land a hit upon him. He had not asked about his brother's injuries and he didn't ask about the Man of Iron's smug grin either, but he nodded slowly and hesitantly moved aside when Tony asked to speak to Loki before they left.

Thor prepared the Tesseract, as Tony leant in close to Loki, until they were cheek to cheek and Loki unconsciously found himself leaning into the warmth of his skin and the familiar scratching of that beard against his flesh; his inner thighs tingled in memory of that beard brushing against him. Tony's right hand curled around Loki's head, pulling him even closer still, until the dark haired man was almost laying his head upon Tony's shoulder and the mortal glanced down at him, looking amused at Loki's subservient position. Loki pushed him back and Tony just laughed, leaning in again, flicking his tongue against the shell of Loki's ear as he spoke. "If you ever want a lesson in how to rule the world," he glanced around, his wide smile still in place, taking in each of the Avengers who while worried and scared of his actions were still on his side, just as Fury was, because each of them knew that if it came down to it Tony would win. He had already won. "Take it from me. I'm more than willing to give you lessons, if I'm compensated." Tony trailed off, allowing his hand to wander down until it was cupping Loki's crotch and squeezing hard once until the Asgardian gasped. He left it to Loki to figure out what the compensation would be, though it wasn't hard to guess.

With one nod to Thor, who stood stiffly a little to the side of them, Tony moved back to his place in the circle of heroes. When the circle was complete, Thor activated the Tesseract, and he and Loki disappeared in a flash of blue light. Tony glanced around again, first at the empty park and then at the people who were supposed to be his comrades (though he hated Steve and had put Natasha in the hospital twice and had beaten up Clint, but he had nothing against Bruce, who had stood by, Hulk grunting in approval, as Tony called out "F6" and watched Loki go down screaming again, and who had yet to breathe a word about it).

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm starving." Tony headed towards his car, uncaring that the others were shaking hands or hugging goodbye, but he waited for Bruce to climb into the passenger seat before he started the engine. As they drove away, three of Tony's suits appeared, walking slowly out of the corpse of trees that bordered their clearing in the park, and took to the sky, flying above and behind Tony like his shadow.

"What?" Bruce glanced over his shoulder, eyes widening at the sight of their tag-alongs.

"All Kings need an entourage, don't you think, Brucie?" Tony grinned over at him. Bruce wasn't sure what to say, though he was worried, because from what the others had said Tony was someone to be afraid of, but Tony hadn't hurt him, and Tony wasn't afraid of the Other Guy. Tony had been the only one to accept him as he was, and if there was anything Bruce had been left wanting for since his accident it was acceptance, so what could he do but accept Tony in turn?

"Yes they do," he agreed, a shy smile creeping across his face as he dismissed the flying army and leant over to nudge Tony's shoulder. Tony nudged him back, and grinned.

**The End**

I really hope this shows up, because I know certain websites don't allow certain characters. Anyway, if not. It's Arabic for "does he know that you have betrayed him", according to Google Translate.

I know nothing about technology, except how to break stuff… Overlook it please?

This would have been up faster, because I wrote 4.5k of it in a few hours last week, but then I had work, and more work, and work, and more work, and then I got drunk, and then had a hangover, and then work…!

Hope you liked it. I'll try and work on Redemption Songs and Through the Looking Glass soon.


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